Among thousands of immigration cases closed each year in Las Vegas, only a minuscule number are dismissed at the discretion of federal prosecutors, according to data released last week by scholars.
Of 4,534 cases closed in Las Vegas between October 2012 and March 31, about 3 percent were tossed administratively by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to ICE data surveyed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. By comparison, nearly 7 percent of all U.S. immigration cases were closed this way.
Dismissing more immigration cases would alleviate congestion in federal courts, said TRAC co-director Susan Long, noting more than half of all criminal prosecutions in the federal court system deal with illegal entry into the country.
"What people don't realize is that our entire system of law enforcement runs with prosecutorial discretion. In most crimes in the country, citizens are never prosecuted," Long said. "There's never enough money for the police and the prosecutors and the court system and jails and prisons, so one prioritizes."